A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past and what we choose to leave behind, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and the bestselling author of She's Not ThereOlivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life - living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher - was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father's beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781984818386
|
Hardcover
February 15:
The Lager Queen of Minnesota
By Stradal, J. Ryan
A novel of family, Midwestern values, hard work, fate, and the secrets of making a world-class beer from the bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest.
Edith Magnusson's rhubarb pies are famous in the Twin Cities - they were named the third-best in the state of Minnesota - and St. Anthony Waterside Nursing Home has quickly become the hottest dinner ticket in town. Still, she lays awake wondering how her life might have been different if her father hadn't left their family farm to her sister Helen, a decision that split their family in two. With the proceeds from the farm, her sister, Helen Blotz, built her husband Orval's family soda business into the top selling brewery in Minnesota. She single-handedly created the light beer revolution and made their corporate motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots, it's Blotz.”
Publisher: n/a
|
9780399563072
|
Book
March 21:
The Authenticity Project
By Pooley, Clare
"A clever, uplifting book that entertains and makes you think."--Sophie Kinsella, #1 New York Times bestselling author The story of a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendship, and even loveJulian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local caf. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Caf. The Authenticity Project's cast of characters--including Hazard, the charming addict who makes a vow to get sober; Alice, the fabulous mommy Instagrammer whose real life is a lot less perfect than it looks online; and their other new friends--is by turns quirky and funny, heartbreakingly sad and painfully true-to-life. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward--and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness. The Authenticity Project is just the tonic for our times that readers are clamoring for--and one they will take to their hearts and read with unabashed pleasure.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781984878618
|
Hardcover
April 18:
The Second Life of Mirielle West
By Skenandore, Amanda
Based on the true story of America's only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined t
Publisher: n/a
|
1496726510
|
May 16:
The Ride of Her Life
By Letts, Elizabeth
and The Eighty-Dollar Champion.In 1954, sixty-three year old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money, no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor's advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men's dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn't even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780525619321
|
Hardcover
June 20:
The Midnight Library
By Haig, Matt
'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?' A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780525559474
|
Hardcover
July 18:
Demon Copperhead Intl
By Kingsolver, Barbara
WINNER OF THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONA New York Times "Ten Best Books of 2022" * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post Bestseller "Demon is a voice for the ages - akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield - only even more resilient." - Beth Macy, author of Dopesick"May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." (Ron Charles, Washington Post) From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturitySet in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780063252011
|
Paperback
August 15:
The Rain Heron
By Arnott, Robbie
A gripping novel of myth, environment, adventure, and an unlikely friendship, from an award-winning Australian author. Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup détat. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting, farming, trading, and forgetting the contours of what was once a normal life. But her quiet stability is disrupted when an army unit, led by a young female soldier, comes to the mountains on government orders in search of a legendary creature called the rain heron - a mythical, dangerous, form-shifting bird with the ability to change the weather. Ren insists that the bird is simply a story, yet the soldier will not be deterred, forcing them both into a gruelling quest. Spellbinding and immersive, Robbie Arnotts The Rain Heron is an astounding, mythical exploration of human resilience, female friendship, and humankinds precarious relationship to nature. As Ren and the soldier hunt for the heron, a bond between them forms, and the painful details of Rens former life emerge - a life punctuated by loss, trauma, and a second, equally magical and dangerous creature. Slowly, Rens and the soldiers lives entwine, unravel, and ultimately erupt in a masterfully crafted ending in which both women are forced to confront their biggest fears - and regrets. Robbie Arnott, one of Australias most acclaimed young novelists, sews magic into reality with a steady, confident hand. Bubbling with rare imagination and ambition, The Rain Heron is an emotionally charged and dazzling novel, one that asks timely yet eternal questions about environment, friendship, nationality, and the myths that bind us. A Macmillan Audio production from FSG Originals
Publisher: n/a
|
9780374539306
|
Audiobook
September 19:
Tom Lake
By Patchett, Ann
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers."Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." - The GuardianIn the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780063327528
|
Hardcover
October 17:
The Frozen River
By Lawhon, Ariel
From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who investigates a shocking murder that unhinges her small community.. Maine, 1789: The Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice. Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As the local midwife and healer, Martha is good at keeping secrets. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, every murder and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell. In that diary she also documented the details of an alleged rape that occurred four months earlier. Now, one of the men accused of that heinous attack has been found dead in the ice.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780385546874
|
Hardcover
November 21:
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
By Mcbride, James
From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah's Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them. In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
2024 Book List & Meeting Dates
January 18:
Mad Honey
By Picoult, Jodi
A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past and what we choose to leave behind, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and the bestselling author of She's Not ThereOlivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life - living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher - was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father's beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.
February 15:
The Lager Queen of Minnesota
By Stradal, J. Ryan
A novel of family, Midwestern values, hard work, fate, and the secrets of making a world-class beer from the bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest.
Edith Magnusson's rhubarb pies are famous in the Twin Cities - they were named the third-best in the state of Minnesota - and St. Anthony Waterside Nursing Home has quickly become the hottest dinner ticket in town. Still, she lays awake wondering how her life might have been different if her father hadn't left their family farm to her sister Helen, a decision that split their family in two. With the proceeds from the farm, her sister, Helen Blotz, built her husband Orval's family soda business into the top selling brewery in Minnesota. She single-handedly created the light beer revolution and made their corporate motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots, it's Blotz.”
March 21:
The Authenticity Project
By Pooley, Clare
"A clever, uplifting book that entertains and makes you think."--Sophie Kinsella, #1 New York Times bestselling author The story of a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendship, and even loveJulian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren't really honest with each other. But what if they were And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local caf. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Caf. The Authenticity Project's cast of characters--including Hazard, the charming addict who makes a vow to get sober; Alice, the fabulous mommy Instagrammer whose real life is a lot less perfect than it looks online; and their other new friends--is by turns quirky and funny, heartbreakingly sad and painfully true-to-life. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward--and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness. The Authenticity Project is just the tonic for our times that readers are clamoring for--and one they will take to their hearts and read with unabashed pleasure.
April 18:
The Second Life of Mirielle West
By Skenandore, Amanda
Based on the true story of America's only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined t
May 16:
The Ride of Her Life
By Letts, Elizabeth
and The Eighty-Dollar Champion.In 1954, sixty-three year old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money, no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor's advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men's dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn't even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.Annie, Tarzan, and her dog, Depeche Toi, rode straight into a world transformed by the rapid construction of modern highways.
June 20:
The Midnight Library
By Haig, Matt
'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?' A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life.
July 18:
Demon Copperhead Intl
By Kingsolver, Barbara
WINNER OF THE 2023 PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONA New York Times "Ten Best Books of 2022" * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post Bestseller "Demon is a voice for the ages - akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield - only even more resilient." - Beth Macy, author of Dopesick"May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." (Ron Charles, Washington Post) From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturitySet in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival.
August 15:
The Rain Heron
By Arnott, Robbie
A gripping novel of myth, environment, adventure, and an unlikely friendship, from an award-winning Australian author. Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup détat. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting, farming, trading, and forgetting the contours of what was once a normal life. But her quiet stability is disrupted when an army unit, led by a young female soldier, comes to the mountains on government orders in search of a legendary creature called the rain heron - a mythical, dangerous, form-shifting bird with the ability to change the weather. Ren insists that the bird is simply a story, yet the soldier will not be deterred, forcing them both into a gruelling quest. Spellbinding and immersive, Robbie Arnotts The Rain Heron is an astounding, mythical exploration of human resilience, female friendship, and humankinds precarious relationship to nature. As Ren and the soldier hunt for the heron, a bond between them forms, and the painful details of Rens former life emerge - a life punctuated by loss, trauma, and a second, equally magical and dangerous creature. Slowly, Rens and the soldiers lives entwine, unravel, and ultimately erupt in a masterfully crafted ending in which both women are forced to confront their biggest fears - and regrets. Robbie Arnott, one of Australias most acclaimed young novelists, sews magic into reality with a steady, confident hand. Bubbling with rare imagination and ambition, The Rain Heron is an emotionally charged and dazzling novel, one that asks timely yet eternal questions about environment, friendship, nationality, and the myths that bind us. A Macmillan Audio production from FSG Originals
September 19:
Tom Lake
By Patchett, Ann
In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers."Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." - The GuardianIn the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born.
October 17:
The Frozen River
By Lawhon, Ariel
From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who investigates a shocking murder that unhinges her small community.. Maine, 1789: The Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice. Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As the local midwife and healer, Martha is good at keeping secrets. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, every murder and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell. In that diary she also documented the details of an alleged rape that occurred four months earlier. Now, one of the men accused of that heinous attack has been found dead in the ice.
November 21:
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
By Mcbride, James
From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah's Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them. In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.